LinkedIn proved to be a more effective lead source than both Twitter and Facebook, according to a recent study from Hubspot.com. The data revealed that LinkedIn delivered a visitor-to-lead conversion rate that averaged seven times higher than the rate for Facebook and four times higher than the rate for Twitter. MarketingProfs.com offered more from the social media study.

The findings were gleaned from more than 3,100 Hubspot B2B customers that generated traffic and leads from social media in 2011. LinkedIn has seen rapid growth recently, with its number of unique visitors up 7.3 percent from the months of February to March 2012, and leaping 60.7 percent since March of the previous year. This finding was supported by additional research from Compete that showed how LinkedIn is growing much more rapidly than both Twitter and Facebook, despite the fact that LinkedIn still trails in monthly user activity. Yet with such strong momentum, LinkedIn is poised to start closing that gap.